Gorbuntsov’s lawyer, Vadim Vedenin, says he thinks the attack may be linked to his client’s role in a 2009 investigation into a murder attempt on another Russian banker Alexander Antonov. Three ethnic Chechens were charged with the attempted murder but the organizers remain unidentified and the case was closed until this year.

It was reopened on March 2 after Gorbuntsov, who himself had been investigated as possible ringleader, submitted a new testimony to police, which they believe suggested the involvement of Gorbuntsov's former business partners, Pyotr Chuvilin and Sergei Mendeleyev, Vedenin told the paper.